macrologia  macrologia
 ma-cro-lo'-gi-a from Gk. macro, "long" and logos, "speaking"
macrology

Longwindedness. Using more words than are necessary in an attempt to appear eloquent.
 
Examples
  Polonius exemplifies macrologia in the following speech from Hamlet.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time;
Therefore, [since] brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it, for to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
—Shakespeare, Hamlet 2.2.86-94
Related Figures
 

See Also
 

 
  Sources: Sherry (1550) 34; Peacham (1577) F2v; Day 1599 82


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Gideon O. Burton, Brigham Young University
Please cite "Silva Rhetoricae" (rhetoric.byu.edu)


Trees | SILVA RHETORICAE | Flowers